Monday, November 28, 2016

I don't know if it's the Trump effect or if something else is causing denier blogs to be weirder and nastier than their normal weird and nasty. As you may have figured out, science deniers seem to think that global warming will stop now that Donald Trump has been elected (archived here). There's no rationale for this.

For years many science deniers have been arguing that "man" is too puny to have any discernible effect on the vast forces dominating Earth's climate. All of a sudden they've changed their tune, and many of them think that just one puny little man can change the direction of climate change and has stopped global warming dead in its tracks.

Weird, huh?

I don't know what they'll do when the announcement is made in a couple of months that this year, 2016, was the third year in a row that was the "hottest year on record".

Figure 1 | Global mean surface temperature anomaly for the 12 months to October each year. The base period is 1951-1980. Data source:GISS NASA

There's more. Science deniers used to pretend to care for the well being of people in less developed countries, especially poor people. (They wanted to ship them coal and have them die young from air and water pollution and smog.) Today they've turned their back on them and are arguing that poor people, especially poor people in Africa, who are starving, should be left to fend for themselves. Eric Worrall (archived here) is saying that some countries, who've let in foreign corporations to rid them of minerals while paying some of the local population a pittance to slave away in their mines, and forcing others to relocate - are "rich" enough to stand on their own two feet. So if there's a famine, let them starve, says Eric. Eric calls the following nations bluff:

Zambia - where 60% of people live below the poverty line (living on less than USD 1.25 per day),

From the WUWT comments

I was going to post a random selection of what you'll see on climate conspiracy blogs, which seem to have turned into purely political blogs of the Breitbart kind. However, I find that I can't choose which are the worst. You can read the misquotes and conspiracy theories galore under the Trump article, where Paul "bring back smog" Driessen thinks that scientists are about to proclaim that global warming is no more. (Paul Driessen is employed by CFACT to tell lies and spread disinformation about climate science and the environment in general.)

If you're more interested in finding out about the rampant greed, envy and lack of human empathy and compassion among Anthony Watts' fans, read the comments under Eric Worrall's article.

References and further reading

Southern Africa cries for help as El Niño and climate change savage maize harvest - article by John Vidal in the Guardian, 26 November 2016

"I don't know what they'll do when the announcement is made in a couple of months that this year, 2016, was the third year in a row that was the "hottest year on record"."

This is what will happen: 2016 will be the record warmest in the modern dataset, and 2017 will of course be slightly cooler as a result of the noise superimposed on the signal. In the minds of the Denialati though that noise will be the signal, and it will be global cooling all over again.

Let's also not forget that Trump is planning to eliminate the NASA Earth Science program. After early 2017, we may be getting no NSA GISS data at all. Deniers will then be able to insist UAH and RSS is the only temperature data there is (which is a lie, of course; Met Office, JMA, and others will still be operating, but no one pays attention to them, and they rely, in part, on NASA).

Deniers will then say there is no further evidence of warming, since NASA is no longer showing us anything.

D.C., that's wrong. JMA, the Met Office (via HADCRUT), and most others do *not* rely on GISS data, but on NCEI (NOAA) data. GISTEMP is just one of several *derivative* products, and in the world of climate science HADCRUT is more often used than GISTEMP.

I've always found the pious claims of concern for the poor from what are - let's face it - almost universally selfish bastards (it's the basis of their political philosophy, after all) particularly galling.

Ironically the reason they do it is they know we care, which they find quaint and amusing, and because they know the blatant hypocrisy winds us up accordingly.

Hey! That's not fair. They DO care. Didn't you see all those demonstrations against corporate greed, and the pollution and the exploitation of people and the environment all over the world, especially in poor countries with lax environmental controls.

Oh, sorry...watching the wrong video and didn't read the placards properly _ these are Tea-Party demonstrations against Obama. They reckon he's an ape and he wasn't born in the US.

Obviously intelligent people; you can always tell by the causes which agitate them.

Now, the first thing I did was check the story carefully for its source. Not too surprisingly, the source was signified like this:

But on its website home page yesterday, Nasa featured a new study which said there was a hiatus in global warming before the recent El Nino, and discussed why this was so.

So, my question is (recognizing that the Daily Mail story has been reposted a zillion times already): why did the story writer, David Rose, not include basic information -- like at least a link to the NASA 'homepage' article, if not mention the title of the study/source?

If anyone has tracked down the actual source of the Stunning New Data! I will be happy.

The Worrall effort is worse than I expected. For each country the reference is either to a gross value of minerals in the ground, or to a total value of exports.But what countries get from mining isn't the export value and certainly isn't the value in the ground. What they get is something much smaller. And what mining costs many countries far exceeds anything they get. Rehabilitation of serious damage costs. The damage itself costs.Services for mining operations cost.And, of course, in the Congo region, the illegal and uncontrolled mining is the source of the political instability: fomented by the international companies who collect the minerals produced while contributing little or nothing to the region.Yet Worrall has the hide to say that political instability in the Congo region is something 'they are going to have to sort out for themselves'.The Worrall world in which Zambia manages to 'keep messing up mining agreements signed with companies desperate to exploit Zambia's mineral wealth' is the opposite of reality. It's the poor countries who are desperate for something from the mining of their resources, and who are led into one-sided agreements that burden them more than any return they get.

As a UK citizen, Worrall will soon understand a lot more about one sided agreements. Post Brexit Britain will struggle to create, from scratch, trading agreements with people who will exploit the mess the UK will be in.

Hi PG - He claims to be or have been an "IT expert", though it's obvious that he knows nothing about using computers for sophisticated modeling. I'm guessing his main expertise these days is in writing apps - FWIW.

As an IT person, I should point most IT people know nothing about modelling. I think you have to be more of the physicist type and understand atmospheric physics and mathematics. IT people may code models, but they usually work from a specification handed to them.

I don't think it's anything to do with that study. At ATTP, he links the Daily Mail piece by David Rose to an unpublished article on the GWPF website written by David Whitehouse titled SATELLITE DATA REINSTATES GLOBAL TEMPERATURE PAUSE, which is more closely related to the topic than the study you cite.

Thanks, Jpio. I may have caught an "It's A Plot" bug infecting this particular forum, where I haunt the halls as Count Debunkula.

That quote which side-tracked me:

"Dr Schmidt also denied that there was any ‘pause’ or ‘hiatus’ in global warming between the 1998 and 2015 El Ninos.

But on its website home page yesterday, Nasa featured a new study which said there was a hiatus in global warming before the recent El Nino, and discussed why this was so. Last night Dr Schmidt had not returned a request for comment.

However, both his own position, and his Nasa division, may be in jeopardy. US President-elect Donald Trump is an avowed climate change sceptic, who once claimed it was a hoax invented by China.

It isn't clear just what Gavin Schmidt was supposed to react to. The new study? Whitehouse? The garish graphics? The promised gutting of NASA's budget?

The Mail perhaps did not send its best to entice Schmidt. "Gavin, you will be broke and teaching high school in Toronto this time next year, you awful man. I have some shitty graphics and and a theme of schadenfreude. Any comment?"

Giving something a name like "pause" or "hiatus" does not give it significance. It merely allows it to be discussed without the tedium of defining what it is that is being discussed every time it is discussed.

I've absolutely no use for the lying scum found over on WUWT, but let's all be honest here.

Humans do not care about anything. We all pretend we do, but the reality as evidenced by our daily actions, says otherwise.

We congratulate ourselves on the tiny insignificant steps we make while continuing to embrace and participate in this civilization on a daily basis. Our alleged compassion is measured in tiny "sacrifices" whereby we proudly deceive ourselves "matter".

We are only deceiving ourselves while wasting enormous amounts of time which can never be recovered.

We're going to argue about our individual and groups merits and all the faults in theirs to the end of time, which for humanity is probably less then 100 years from now.

Each group will congratulate itself on how "right" they are, how moral and how true to their principles while none will be fully honest or admit to their contributions to this conclusion. We'll justify our lifestyles, our actions, our unwillingness to change in a million different ways, always inching closer and closer to failure.

The reality is we do not care about anything. If we did, we would all stop what we are doing. We would save what is left. We would stop pretending that our pitiful efforts have made a difference. But none of us will do this. We'd rather entertain ourselves to the very end, pointing fingers.

I have spent well over $30,000 helping the community in the last 20 years possibly more i do not keep a book on it.It is pretty simple just go and contribute to helping the people in your area not very hard to do if you think about it and do not expect praise just do it.

Here is the level of "Post Truth"The onus is on your side to prove your claims, and this does not include the many failed computer predictions. As the Federal Senator in this speech (who is also a climate scientist) points out very clearly.

{ this is climate scientist "Malcolm Roberts" no less }

This is the level we are at people.From the not the house of Lords but you know who he is.

My "original stance", recorded in writing and read by millions on the front page of the Weekend section of the London Sunday Telegraph in November 2006, was that some warming was to be expected, but, on balance, not very much. I see no reason to modify that opinion.From approximately 2009 onwards, I pointed out that, contrary to prediction, the global temperature trend since the beginning of 2001 had been either negative or flat. For a time, that was the case on all datasets. Then, in 2014, several datasets were altered so as to show warming where there had previously been none. In the past couple of years there has been an el Nino, so all datasets now show some warming - but at only half the rate that IPCC had originally predicted in 1990.The warming of the ocean in the first 11 full years of the ARGO bathythermograph record was at a rate equivalent to 1 Celsius degree every 430 years. That is not a significant warming rate: but it is probably close to the genuine warming rate to be expected in response to anthropogenic increases in greenhouse-gas emissions.Of course even this small warming represents a substantial quantum of thermal energy: but so what? If a 40-gallon drum has three or four drops of water in it, a microscopic life-form in one of the drops of water will say that that is a lot of water: but, compared with the capacity of the drum, it is of course negligble - a point that the climate models incorrectly represent.The levelized cost of electricity from coal is of order $30 per MWh, which is considerably below the cost of any other form of electricity generation. From the point of view of third-world countries, where some six million people a year die before their time because they have no electric power, the availability of affordable, reliable, base-load, non-polluting coal is of infinitely more value than the availability of very costly, environment-destroying, temperamental, intermittent, high-maintenance "renewables".The cost of providing electric power to all who do not have it is a very small fraction of the vast sums now being squandered on making largely non-existent global warming go away. The rational economic choice, as well as the emotional moral choice, is to stop wasting trillions on global-warming mitigation and to redirect billions towards giving the world electrical power, and preferably coal-fired electrical power.Link to comment: MY COMMENT UNDERYour original stance not that long ago was there is No Global Warming.You went to several countries and made sure your message was given.Now suddenly there is but it is all good and ok evidently.The amount of energy required to raise the huge volume of ocean even by a minute percentage of a degree is huge.While the source of this energy is the sun and it is not showing the increase in output of energy required you have a problem.Until very recently the cherry pick was to use the last El Nino event to say that we were headed for cooling.You just repeated that cherry pick above.As you know as everyone knows it is the trend that is the important aspect.The trend has been consistent and it is up.As to coal being clean yes it is cleaner than in the 1880 but i am afraid not ever going ...

Yes brilliant examples of NewSpeak there is no other explaination.We are living in the age of the IDIOT has freedom to claim anything they like and IT works brilliantly.

I do not think this is going to change anytime soon we live in the "Post Truth" age where any made up stuff is taken as correct.At least those who read 1984 know exactly what i mean we are seeing it now.

Instead of commenting as "Anonymous", please comment using "Name/URL" and your name, initials or pseudonym or whatever. You can leave the "URL" box blank. This isn't mandatory. You can also sign in using your Google ID, Wordpress ID etc as indicated. NOTE: Some Wordpress users are having trouble signing in. If that's you, try signing in using Name/URL. Details here.

When you read older articles on a desktop or notebook, you may find the sidebar moves down the page, instead of being on the side. That can happen with some older articles if your browser is not the full width of your computer screen. I am not planning to check every previous post, so if you come across something particularly annoying, send me an email and I'll fix it. Or you can add your thoughts to this feedback article.

When moderation shows as ON, there may be a short or occasionally longer delay before comments appear. When moderation is OFF, comments will appear as soon as they are posted.

All you need to know about WUWT

WUWT insider Willis Eschenbach tells you all you need to know about Anthony Watts and his blog, WattsUpWithThat (WUWT). As part of his scathing commentary, Wondering Willis accuses Anthony Watts of being clueless about the blog articles he posts. To paraphrase:

Even if Anthony had a year to analyze and dissect each piece...(he couldn't tell if it would)... stand the harsh light of public exposure.

Definition of Denier (Oxford): A person who denies something, especially someone who refuses to admit the truth of a concept or proposition that is supported by the majority of scientific or historical evidence.
‘a prominent denier of global warming’
‘a climate change denier’

Alternative definition: A former French coin, equal to one twelfth of a Sou, which was withdrawn in the 19th century. Oxford. (The denier has since resurfaced with reduced value.)